Dream Plague
by FrostBlooms
Summary: He likes to think it's she who is really talking to him and not just his rampant, overactive imagination. On a little clipboard he keeps a scrawled tally of "yes no maybe" and a brief description of each dream, if he can remember it. Cloud x Aerith.


**Title:** Dream Plague  
**Characters:** Cloud, Aeris, Tifa/ Cloud x Aeris with a hint of one-sided Cloud x Tifa  
**Prompt:** 010. Sickness for and 43. Hands for CxA 100 Themes on the forums.  
**Word Count:** ??  
**Rating:** PG.  
**Author's Notes:** Heavily inspired by "Hands" by Jewel which is one of most Aeris relevant songs _ever_. FFVII: AC canon.

--

He likes to think it's she who is really talking to him and not just his rampant, overactive imagination. On a little clipboard he keeps a scrawled tally of "yes no maybe" and a brief description of each dream, if he can remember it.

--

_YesMaybe__--Yes/ forest/ back when it's all over?_

Aeris is dead.

Aeris is gone now.

She's in a better place.

It's been days and yet, he still feels like he's 5 again and that he's failed _again_ and now he's curled up into his bed feeling so very alone.

Again.

He writes **Liar** at the end of line, a show of faith in fate and the future and now it's not "back when it's all over?," but "back when it's all over **Liar?**" and he can't help but wonder if the liar is directed towards her or himself.

--

_NoMaybe?**I wish**/ she was...alive_

He never knew that there was such thing as a pleasant temperature in dreams (only the extreme hots and colds of nightmares--the biting cold of loneliness and the flames igniting a far-off memory he'd rather forget for now), but it was warmth he felt, and two arms wrapping around him hesitantly, but lightly, before dragging him out into a bright, bright light that hurt his eyes just a little.

Only later does he find out that he fell unconscious somewhere on the Great Glacier and _oh god, you almost died, Cloud, we were so worried_!

--

_Reality/1AM/Ceilings+Dark Wood Walls_

He sleeps to dream. Except now he can't sleep and so he lies in bed pondering and worrying over the little things. He's irritable and touchy in the morning--a definite regression.

-- 

_Reality/or something like it_

Tifa comes into his room smiling gently, yet still biting her bottom lip into a bloody red mess. She's not quite sure how to explain the bottle of pills she's holding beyond, "Here Cloud, take these--are you alright? Please come back to us."

He accepts them wordlessly, but smiles a little and nods his head saying, "Sure, I'll take the sleeping pills."

He sleeps that night and dreams more--reminding himself to thank Tifa later.

(He'll smile at Tifa later and her heart will flutter a little.)

--

It's been over for a while, by now, but no, they still come. It's a blessing and a pestilence.

--

_NONO**NO**/stopitstopitstopit_

A hazy light drifts through the ceiling--a rare beam of sunlight blinding him momentarily. He shifts uncomfortably, before feeling a large cold hand grip him from behind. He turns around to see Barret, smiling (_smiling_?!) who points for Cloud to turn back around.

She comes down the aisle way of one of the places she loved the most as he stands in front of a bed of brightly hued flowers (minding them the whole way). She looks radiant. He can't help but feel radiant. She joins him in front of Barret and--

It's the happiest of dreams that hurt the most.

-- 

_?_

"I'm okay you know--you don't have to keep checking up on me."

She laughs lightly--white light in the midst of a dark forest that blinds him in a nice, sensitive fashion. No swerving off the road in a glare-induced crash, simply--a melting away of everything. Cloud's frustrated as ever, with the headaches, the mysterious people with silver hair (which is _never_ good in his book) fucking up his life further and most of all, with himself, but he tries not to let it show.

She still knows the truth anyway and that frustrates him too.

-- 

_Yes._

"You see? Everything's alright." He thinks back later to how _comforting_ it is to know that he isn't the only one hallucinating--especially after the whole mindfuck trip he conveniently went through shortly after first meeting her. It's really her--smiling radiantly as ever as she turns and lies straight to his face, but he can't help but smile helplessly anyway.

--

The dreams continue.

--

A/N: Written 8-18-07. C+C.


End file.
